Topic 5 Reflection

This week saw us looking at Open Access and the general idea of making content free over the internet. My post was centred around the debate of having scientific journals and publications being made free to view online. I read on Chris‘s about making games and movies free, which wasn’t what I thought it was. Chris argued how the use of piracy was seen as a form of competition by firms, in which websites like Spotify and Netflix came to be. The use of advertisements to try curb piracy-related activity had no effect whatsoever. Chris also argued that more people would start using things like Spotify and Netflix over piracy because the services are quite convenient for how much they cost. Yet true, I personally disagreed to this as when given the chance to watch any movie or download any song for free, why would someone pay a little bit of money per month for a service? Even though it is a small amount, the chance at free content isn’t something people would pass on.

Nick‘s blog, like mine, talked about the pros and cons of Open Access with scientific journals. I learned from his blog that Open Access is very beneficial for universities and students who don’t have the required funds to publish in well-known scientific journals. However, because its free, the publisher of the scientific journal will not earn as much money as someone who has published their work into a well-known journal.

Open Access, like many of the topics in this module, was something I wasn’t very familiar with before researching and writing about it. Open Access is something I see as very beneficial for younger and less experienced people who want to make an impact with their research.

Word Count: 294

Sharing Your Content Online for Free: Why or Why Not?

By posting your content online, you enable yourself to have more people reference/cite your work and more people can see it as opposed to publishing it in a journal where payment is required in order to gain access to said publication. Another positive about using Open Access is that government grants and funding have gone into it so that your work is supported by the government. Open Access is also beneficial for students who may not have the required funding needed for their work to be published in top journals either. Adding to that, it is quite easy to get your work published with Open Access, which could be seen as another positive for younger people trying to have their work noticed. Posting your content for free on the internet is something that is considered by a lot of people who are publishing their content online. By using Open Access, publishers can use this to make availability of their content free and available for reuse immediately. This video by Wiley goes further into depth as to why posting online freely is beneficial:

On the idea of it being so easy to have your work published with Open Access, this has lead to arguments that argue against the idea of Open Access. An article published by The Guardian goes into depth about why Open Access has its issues. Because Open Access has very limited if not no costs to its publication and is very easy to have your work published through open access, issues like quality control and the quality of the work published become apparent. Yes, it is very beneficial that works become available through Open Access very quickly, but the quality of the work that is published may be questionable and it can go on to be cited by many people who may not be able to see that the quality of the publication isn’t fantastic. Then again, those who have published their work onto top journals before may be able to easily figure out whether or not the quality of the publication is good enough to be cited in the future.

Open Access can be very beneficial for those of us who want their work to be get noticed and gain traction very quickly without having to worry about the costs of publishing online. However, Open Access can let works of lesser quality slip through the cracks as Open Access makes it so easy to publish the work regardless of its quality and/or credibility.

Word Count: 410

References:

Rice, C. (2013) Open Access Publishing Hoax, The Guardian. Available from: http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2013/oct/04/science-hoax-peer-review-open-access [Accessed 5 December 2015]

 

Understanding Open Access, Wiley, 30 Apr 2015. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdR3X4Z5COU [Accessed 5 December 2015]